Gender Inequality In The Film Industry

“Miss Representation” is a film released in January 2011, which shows the various ways the media represent women. In the short trailer it starts by showing quotes, various statistics, and input of various influential women, on how women are misrepresented in our society. Some statistics include on how women are vastly outnumbered by men in leading positions in the workplace and in government. It also claims that the media only uses women’s sexualized image for money, not because it is what consumers want to see in advertisements. For example, in a video explaining oversexualizing in young children Geena Davis comments, “…in G-rated animated films the female characters wear the same amount of sexually revealing

Stereotypes in our society are not uncommon. We come across them every day without realizing it. It is in our human nature to create expectations of the people around us, which could be based upon their ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender or other factors. Stereotypes help us categorize a vast group of people that we may not know anything about, to think that they are smaller and less intimidating. I believe that the blame for these cookie-cutter patterns can lead directly back to the media in every sense of the word. Media is all around us, and affects our opinions and ability to think for ourselves. Whether it’s the latest box office hit or the headlining news, we are getting assumptions from every point of view, which makes it

In contemporary film women's roles in films have varied quiet considerably between genres, geographical placement, and between

The issue of female representation in Hollywood is one of the biggest issues in the film industry. Sexism, discrimination, and a lack of jobs for female filmmakers has been a problem in Hollywood since its early days, and recently this problem has been analyzed using many different genres. The Women of Hollywood Speak Out is an editorial written by Maureen Dowd of the New York Times. It is about difficulty for female filmmakers to break out and direct big budget films for Hollywood. Celluloid Ceilings: Women Directors Speak Out is a video created by Bloomberg about the issues with sexism and discrimination that female filmmakers have faced. These two pieces will be compared to discover how this topic can be discussed using different genres

Hollywood not only shows little to none diverse to race but also gender on screen and behind the scenes. When watching a movie to the end credits most the names that are shown are males. The diverse for gender in Hollywood is low. Females are not given the same opportunity as the males. Article from NPR STAFF (2015) informed that women make up half of the U.S. population but only 6% of the females directed theatrical films in 2013(Hollywood’s Homogeneity section, para.1). Even though the study is old the data has not change. Population in females in Hollywood in front and behind the scenes cannot be compared to the nation. Hollywood is own by males which are keeping positions for women to a minimum. The heads of Hollywood are not willing to be diverse so they can stay in control. Among the ranks of top Hollywood film executives, the

Afro-American woman are one of the most under represented groups in Hollywood films. They face double underrepresentation not only on screen but also behind the camera and it is because they are woman and black. Since the very beginning, Hollywood film industry has been dominated by white male producers, writers, directors and executives (Smith, 780; Covington, 21) that empower their own race and gender hierarchies. The Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA carried out a study of the top 200 Hollywood films in 2013 and found that leading characters are 74.7% male and 25.3% female and according to race, 83.3% are white in contrast to 16.7%, which consists the minorities. Behind the camera, regarding the gender of directors,

Many of these filmmakers, through the feminist movement, have taken Hollywood by storm. There are many individuals that believe the feminist movement is a woman’s movement — to further the female agenda — and while, it is true

The media represents only 22-30 year old women as sexually appealing, this notion brain washes women all around the world into thinking youth equals beauty, and if you’re not young, then you’re not beautiful. Movie producers are trying to increase the amount of female protagonists they include in their films, they think they’re doing something unique and are benefitting the problem that is the small amount of women that are the main characters in films. But when they are the main character in films, they still are sexualised. In “chick flicks” they may be the main character, but their main purpose is to find love, but how does this benefit the cause when producers are basically saying the only use for women protagonists is to have the man they desire.. Another prime example of how much producers fail to strengthen the role of women in movies, is when they’re a boss or entrepreneur, they’re always bitchy and sacrifice all love and kindness to be successful.

In 2015 Hollywood Diversity Report: Flipping the Script, Drs. Darnell Hunt and Ana-Christina Ramon takes a hard look at the statistics of women of color involved on television, in movies, and behind the scenes. In 2013, cable scripted television programs had approximately 62.9% lead male roles and 37.1% female lead roles – of that 80.7% of lead female roles were white and 19.3% were Asian, Latino, Indian, and black women of color – a slight increase of 4.6% since 2012. It was in 2012 that women held the most female leads in the history of film: 30.8% – of these 15.1% were women of color; however, in 2013, the percentage of female leads dropped to 25.3% while increasing in minority roles to 16.7%. Furthermore, it is seen that female television writers and directors make up approximately 30% with 30% of these women being minorities. Oscar winners by gender was an even 50% in 2012, and increase of 32% since 2011. Of these female actresses, 25% of them were minorities – an increase from 0 in 2011. Drs. Hunt and Roman admit to studying these finding in an attempt to shed light on the “Hollywood race and gender problem” (Ramon). The increase and decrease of gender roles and minority roles is proof that Hollywood has the capacity to correct the problem when it comes to discrimination and prejudice, but seemingly refuse to do

According to an article called, “How Horror Films Are Bringing More Gender Equality to Hollywood” it states that, “University of Southern California communications professor Stacy Smith, who researches depictions of gender and race in film and TV, found that of the 5,839 characters in the 129 top-grossing films released between 2006 and 2011, fewer than 30 percent were girls or women.” This explains that males still have a dominating place in movie character roles in this generation. In general male figures in the movie industry could be seen as the more ruling characters as they are more

Sexism in the Media Society today is experiencing a bias and negative impact from the media; sexism against women. Women are judged by what they wear, say, or do constantly. Sexism has been going on for centuries because of the preconceived roles women have been forced within. Although women have been degraded in the media and almost every other aspect of their lives, there are many people starting to come together to fight against sexism and put a stop to women being humiliated in the media. Women in Hollywood face sexism daily by who they work for, their peers, and especially fans.

Since the 1940’s, movies have predominately portrayed women as sex symbols. Beginning in the 1940’s and continuing though the 1980’s, women did not have major roles in movies. When they did have a leading role the women was either pretreated as unintelligent and beautiful, or as conniving and beautiful: But she was always beautiful. Before the 1990’s, men alone, wrote and directed all the movies, and the movies were written for men. In comparison, movies of the 90’s are not only written and directed by women, but leading roles are also held by older and unattractive women. In this paper I will show the variations and growth of women’s roles in movies from the 1940’s though the 1990’s.

The film industry has created the conventional gender roles of society into their movies. A majority of films have supported some of the male and female stereotypes. In the history of the film industry, the role of men is primarily that of the stereotypical working class man or hero, while the roles of women are primarily portrayed as being somewhat inferior to men. In the 1930s through the 1970s, men held the leading roles in films while women played smaller roles. In terms of jobs, women were given mostly family roles and rarely were shown outside of their homes, while men had successful careers and did many activities outside of home. “Women were shown doing housework and men were the beneficiaries of their work” (“Women’s roles in the

Studies regarding gender roles in media show that the feminine essence tends to be depicted as inferior, with women often being marginalized, disempowered and humiliated through a status that is based on their youth and looks; whilst men tend to be portrayed as superior with higher and longer lasting careers

The simplest way to increase gender equality is by creating more roles for women. According to 2007-2012 film statistics reviewed by the New York Film Academy, the “average ratio of male actors to female actors is 2.25:1.” With less females onscreen than males, men continue to be the majority in movies. It is important to portray realistic representations of everyday life in where “women comprise 50 percent of the population” (Green, Women In Film Los Angeles). It is also important for women and young girls to have a variety of role models to look up to. With more women in movies, young girls will begin to understand that being a woman does not limit what they can do. Organizations such as Women in Film were created to help by “promoting equal opportunities for women, encouraging creative projects by women, and expanding and enhancing portrayals of women in all forms of global